This text is in the exhibition catalog presented by the Colombian artist and photographer, María Elvira Escallón, with her project, Nuevas floras [New Flora] (2003). This work was awarded the III Premio Luis Caballero [Third Luis Caballero Prize] by the Instituto Distrital de Cultura y Turismo [Culture and Tourism Institute] at the Galería Santa Fe. In the introduction to the document, the critic and curator, José Ignacio Roca, points out Escallón’s use of a range of languages in executing her projects; all the while, she manages to maintain a consistency in her work. Roca brings earlier works into his essay, such as In Vitro (1997), In Memoriam (2000) and El reino de este mundo [The Kingdom of this World] (2000). In these works, as in Nuevas floras,the exploration of a space suggests premises for reading her art interventions. Roca also points out that Nuevas floras has two basic aspects: its nomadic nature (because the underlying idea can be rendered in other spaces) and its temporary nature (because its duration is undefined). As a rule, the artist returns to each landscape in which she has intervened to confirm and record the course a particular idea has taken.

Nuevas floras (2003) is an intervention performed by María Elvira Escallón (b. 1954) on a series of trees included among the native Colombian flora. Based on prior research, Escallón determined how she could proceed without damaging the trees themselves with her art action. The sections of the trees subject to the intervention were carved by experts into forms generally evocative of classical architecture and common elements in Baroque church altars. 

This work earned Escallón the III Premio Luis Caballero (2003), awarded by the Instituto Distrital de Cultura y Turismo de Bogotá [Culture and Tourism Institute of Bogotá] to projects by artists under 35 years old with strong art experience. The text published in the exhibition catalog by the curator, José Ignacio Roca (b. 1962), explains why this artist’s work was selected. Roca emphasizes the ideas that recur in Escallón’s work: the references to other works by the artist show the through lines among these works. In addition to giving us the writer’s thoughts on “sculptural thinking” in contemporary Colombian art, this text presents one of the artists who has explored this ground.

When we observe Escallón’s work in detail, we see an act of insistence on concepts and ways of “making” that, without being repetitive, allow her to gain access to an artistic space where the idea is consistent with the constructed reality. The artist’s experience in both the world of sculpture (in the broadest sense) and that of photography are fundamental to her achievements in the visual arts. Among her best-known projects are In Vitro (1997), In Memoriam (2000), El reino de este mundo (2000) and Desde adentro [From Within] (2003). Nuevas floras (2003) reintroduces the artist’s idea of creating a dialogue that refers to classical art with the artistic possibilities provided by contemporary art. When Escallón received the Visiting Arts International Fellowship at Spike Island [Bristol, England] (2003–04) with this project, the artist performed an intervention of the same kind in Bristol, southwest England. The exhibition held there included photographs of the first phase, performed in Bogotá. 

For other documents related to this one, see “Memoria, imagen y duelo. Conversaciones entre una artista y un historiador” [doc. no. 1092383] and “Entrevista a María Elvira Escallón” [doc. no. 1091921].